40million mothers give birth each year without a midwife or trained attendant on hand, Save The Children found (Katie Collins/PA Wire)

More than 1million babies die every year on the day they are born, making the first 24 hours of a child’s life its most dangerous, a new report reveals.

Half of these deaths could be avoided if mother and baby are given free healthcare and a skilled midwife, according to the charity Save The Children.

A further 1.2million babies are stillborn each year often due to childbirth complications, infections or hypertension, the charity’s new report Ending Newborn Deaths found.

Researchers uncovered cases where razorblades are the only tools used by traditional midwives.

Meanwhile, three out of ten women worldwide – or 40million each year – have to give birth without a midwife or skilled birth attendant alongside.

The report insists there is a direct connection between the supply of midwives and the chances a baby has of surviving beyond the first day.

A baby is 500 times more likely to die on the first day than when one-month-old, with about ten per cent of newborns needing help to begin breathing, the study says.

The risk of a newborn baby dying is one in 200, in the 41 industrialised nations where almost all births are attended by a midwife or health worker.

Yet some 98 per cent of newborn deaths happy in developing countries, the least-developed of which often have half of all mother in childbirth doing so alone.

The Save The Children report highlights nations of concern such as India, where more than 300,000 babies die on their first day – the highest in the world.

Ethiopia and Afghanistan were also pinpointed, as well as northern Nigeria when some traditional midwives only use razorblades.

Meanwhile, in Kenya the majority of trained birth attendants are men – but many women are forced into seclusion for 40 days after giving birth and now allowed to be seen by any man, the report’s authors added.

And in Bangladesh newborn boys are more likely to be given life-saving interventions than girls, the report said.

The charity is now calling for governments and health authorities to commit funding to widespread training and equipment, as well as removing fees for all pregnancy and birth services.

Save The Children chief executive Justin Forsyth said: ‘It’s criminal that many of these deaths could be averted simply if there was someone on hand to make sure the birth took place safely and who knew what to do in a crisis.’

Derese, a farmer from the Ethiopian town of Borena, has lost five of his ten children – including the latest who recently died along with Derese’s wife during childbirth.

He and his wife had been turned away from their nearest health centre, en route to another hospital where skilled assistance might be available – but she died just 10m into their final journey.

He said: ‘If you could see inside myself, you would be able to see the fire that’s burning me.

‘I know that it’s because of the fact that I am poor and do not have money that I was
unable to save my wife.

‘Every time I think of her, I feel guilty. The children also still cry when they think of her.’